


Choking On Love

by Heliosthetroll



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Near Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 14:03:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliosthetroll/pseuds/Heliosthetroll
Summary: Dirk falls in love with John aka his little brother's straight best friend and that love threatens to kill him





	Choking On Love

**Author's Note:**

> aaaa finally back! I'm so sorry for being gone for a month and a half take this super long fic bye

You know you’re in danger the moment you see his smile. That goofy wide grin with those buck teeth that make him look unbearably cute. His teeth are surprisingly shiny and white and lacking cavities for someone who complains so often about all the cake his dad makes him eat. You’re staring, you know you are, but it’s not like anyone can tell from behind your shades anyway. You manage to bring your eyes up from his blinding smile to his eyes and instantly regret it. If his smile was hypnotizing then his eyes are a fucking siren song. You instantly get sucked in and you can’t look away. They’re a deep blue that doesn’t quite have a natural equivalent. They aren’t as dark as the ocean but they’re not as bright as the sky either. The closest thing you can come up with is the imagined color of the wind by some child drawing a cold windy day. They sparkle just as much as his smile and they draw you in and you just can’t seem to look away. 

Dave’s always talked about the kid. His name is John Egbert and he’s Dave’s best friend. He used to live in Washington and Dave only knew him through chat clients and video calls. You’ve never been all the that interested in him beyond the fact that if he were to hurt Dave somehow you’d destroy him but Dave talks about him a lot, the two are really close, and so you know a decent amount about him. He’s a prankster and a huge dork for one though you could’ve deduced that last bit yourself by the Slimer shirt he’s wearing and his cargo shorts. His glasses do nothing to hide the eyes you are still entranced by but it doesn’t matter. He’s your little brother’s best friend and he’s perfect.

You are so fucking screwed.

He’s moved to Texas for college and of course you and Dave are both going to college here. It’s not that it wouldn’t be cool to go somewhere else, somewhere with a good art college or something for Dave since he’s talented in so many different facets of art or maybe somewhere with a tech college for you since Dave and your friends are always saying how good of a engineer and programmer you are or better yet somewhere with both if you were really lucky, but it’s not like you had much money when you grabbed Dave as soon as you were 18 and fled from Bro’s apartment. He never looked for you two. Probably knew he’d not get you back anyway since if he were to make a fuss about missing kids he was likely to get found out for everything he did to the two of you. Didn’t matter to you. You kept Dave in school, got a job at the library, sold little mechanical projects on the side, and you’ve survived. 

Now Dave has graduated and along with that he’s going to college. You and Hal had agreed to stray away from illegal activity just in case you got caught, it was too risky to leave Dave without a guardian, but you both made an exception when it came to making sure Dave got into college. He’d gotten decent grades in school thanks to your tutoring and assistance on homework and the like and his art skills were enough to get him a partial scholarship but you still had to nip a bit of money from Bro’s bank account to fully pay for it. You didn’t feel guilty in the slightest for stealing from that bastard though and it wasn’t like the asshole didn’t have more than enough money to live on. You ended up not getting caught by any authorities somehow and if Bro noticed he didn’t do anything about it. 

You, on the other hand, you hadn’t been planning on going to college. You were fine with your current life. But when Dave found out you didn’t have any plans for college he’d swiftly informed you that not going was a waste of your quote ‘sicknasty thinking skills’ and had said he’d refuse to go to college if you didn’t as well. So despite you not going for the first three years after high school in order to survive and care for Dave now that you were riding steady with a good amount of money, a decent job, and a good reputation online for your goods leading to a steady influx of customers, you were starting college along with Dave and apparently John as well. 

Perfect John who was going to be the end of you.

Dave and John had known well in advance they were going to the same college but with how stressed you’d been getting ready for it you must’ve missed that little factoid in Dave’s ramblings because when the day arrived and Dave insisted on going to the music room about thirty minutes before either of you had classes you were confused. You figured he wanted to look around the place, maybe have a debate with the music teacher over adding some rap to the boy’s choir songs or about any chances of him learning more about music mixing and DJing during his time in college since one of his enjoyments seemed to be fucking with his various music teachers about that kind of thing. You swear he almost made his elementary school music teacher, what was her name again? Ms. Rosa or something like that, almost quit and only stay since she also taught health. He had her again for home ec. in middle school and you remember Dave coming home with the widest smile and telling you how done she’d seemed when she read out Dave’s name from the attendance list.

However Dave does not lead you to a teacher and instead leads you to where the band and other non-choir stuff takes place and as you approach you hear the playing of a piano drift around and it makes you wonder what kind of insane manic woke up extra early just to come play the piano for nobody. It is really good playing though and Dave seems to perk up and picks up the pace when he hears it, no longer glancing at his map for directions every couple seconds. You match him and he leads you to a room where you suppose private lessons or something must take place because it seems too small for an entire band to fit in. There’s only about enough room for maybe four or five people to comfortably fit and there’s spotty soundproofing but not enough to completely block the piano music from drifting out into the empty hallway. No one else is around, most other people who are here early are in the common ground gathering places then here, so it’s just you and Dave here to hear the music except for the person playing it. The piano is turned so you can’t see who is playing it right away but Dave cuts through the music with his voice and it surprises you with what he says. 

“John!” 

It almost doesn’t register at first, there’s no way the dorky goof of a guy Dave never bothered to describe to you plays piano that well and you doubt it even more when the guy stops playing and comes around from the piano because damn. He looks good. Dorky sure. Goofy definitely. But damn good too. You and Dave are skinny, that’s what happens when you live the way you two have, but you’re tall too. You yourself have a good six feet two inches to you and Dave is six feet nothing so you both are quite tall. John is only about five eight but what he lacks in height he makes up for in arm muscle. Those trunks look like they could crush you. Hold you down and- nope not going to go down that path. He hasn’t really skipped leg day per say but they don’t compare to his arms. And yet somehow, some fucking how, he’s still got chub to his cheeks that give him the most adorable baby face to go with all the other features that make him perfect. His hair is wild and it barely looks like he combed it at all and it’s as dark as the night sky. You can’t tell how it feels from it’s look but you want to touch it and find out really bad. 

You are so dead. 

The kid jumps from his seat and rushes over to squeeze Dave in a tight hug. “Dave!” He exclaims out as your brother gives a wheeze that in any situation that isn’t this one and therefore you wouldn’t be so shocked and entranced would lead to you being pissed at John for causing harm to Dave. Dave just smiles and chuckles, hugging back for a moment before speaking. “You’re going to crush me ya big oaf.” John giggles and pulls back from Dave. “Sorry Dave I’m just so excited to finally see you in person!” He almost looks like a puppy and it wouldn’t be all that strange you figure if he had a tail wagging behind him in this moment. Dave is excited too. Some people might not be able to tell but you can and you guess John has cracked enough of the Strider code throughout his friendship with Dave to know that Dave is at least happy to see him. Dave has this grin that you rarely get to see on him and it instantly makes you forgive the gust of breath John had forced out of Dave with his tackle hug. Seriously this kid would be a perfect pick for the football team if it weren’t for the fact that you know the kid is pretty much blind without those nerdy ass glasses he wears. That and despite his clear strength he doesn’t exactly strike you as the typical jock. You wonder how he even got that strong when his hobbies, as far as you know, are crappy movies, pranks, and apparently piano. 

The two are chatting away like maniacs as you just stand there awkwardly staring. That is until Dave finally takes it upon himself to introduce you to the magically perfect boy in front of you. “John this is my older brother Dirk. Dirk this is my best friend John who decided fuck it I’m coming up to Texas for college for no reason.” John cuts in before you can get your words out. “Hey! You know I came here for you!” “That’s a little gay John.” “Shut up Dave! I’m not gay!” Oh. Right. John is straight. Well you’re even more fucked than you thought. Dave had finally gotten over the whole am I gay or not thing a while back and settled on bisexual and you’ve always known you were into dudes even if you don’t like necessarily labeling yourself gay. John on the other hand, as Dave had told you many times, was quote ‘denying his inner homo’. At the time you figured Dave was just in the denial phase of his first crush on a straight dude but then he told you about this kid Karkat he’d met through his other close friend Jade and you knew there was no way the ship wasn’t sailing between those two. Either way that still firmly lands John as straight and you as fucked. 

Call you an imbecile, it’s not like you don’t do it already, but with you and John you could swear it was love at first sight at least on your end. Maybe you just had a type, you still remember that awkward crush you had on Jake that went nowhere and got rid of itself not long after he declared that he wasn’t into anyone you knew during the same truth or dare game you had been hoping to use to confess to him, but this was different. This was no oh you’re a cute dork who could ruin me if you wanted to oh no I have a crush. This was much more intense. And it only got worse as the boys got sucked right back into their own conversation and you listened to their banter, once again fading into the background. 

With a crush the risk is small. You can get rejected and feel shitty for a little while but that's about it. Love comes with a much bigger risk if the other party didn’t feel the same and it didn’t even require you to ever tell them how you felt. Love comes with the risk of hanahaki disease. 

Flowers bloom in your lungs and sometimes on or in other body parts when you aren’t loved back but the person you love. Hanahaki disease doesn’t always happen of course, it’s decently rare to get it, but when you do you’re pretty much doomed to one of two choices. Die or somehow fix the issue causing it. This can be done in one of two ways. Get the person you love to somehow love you back which is the most rare fix, or ditch your feelings somehow which is another rare occurrence but for very different reasons. The most common thing to happen is by far death. The flowers are most commonly related to the person they bloom from in some way, like someone with the favorite color red who likes romance would likely have roses where as someone who is more into swimming and white might have a water lily. The starting symptoms are often coughing, shortness of breath, a lack of strength in your body, and dehydration. These symptoms get worse and worse until you cough up blood and then flowers and in the worse cases flowers bloom on your skin. The longest time it’s taken for someone to die of Hanakai disease is a year but the shortest was a month. You’d looked all of that up when your crush on Jake was a thing but you never got the disease thanks to the crush, in hindsight, being just that. A crush. 

This time though you doubt it’s just a crush. 

And the possibility that you might die terrifies you. 

Suffocation because of flowers isn’t exactly a great way to go to be sure. 

You let yourself fade into the background as the best friends catch up so you can flip out silently and blank-faced about this until you’re snapped back to the real world by a literal snap. Dave’s snap to be exact. Right in front of your face. Well shit you zoned out so bad you didn’t even realize he’d turned back to you again. “Dirk? Dude you ok?” “Shit yeah sorry.” “Talking to Hal?” Oh shit he’s giving you an excuse. He knows you don’t talk to Hal if you don’t have to but John doesn’t know that clearly by the way his eyes widen. You wonder if he even knows who Hal is or if he’s just surprised you can talk to people through your shades. The question is why is Dave throwing you a bone? Can he tell? Surely he can’t right? Either way you take the excuse and nod. He smirks at you. “Nerd. What you two fighting over this time? The irony levels of being way too smart for college but going anyway because your brother wanted you to?” You see John raise his hand up to cover his mouth and you roll your eyes. “Sure. Let’s go with that Dave.” He chuckles and you can tell his chat with John has left him in a very good mood simply by how expressive he’s being. “Well put that little argument on hold broseph cause it’s time for you to skedaddle off to your nerd class and me to photography.” You and Dave had tried your best to get classes that followed mostly the same schedule time wise and that lead to you having to split at the same time. You weren’t going to tell him that you also were keeping up your late night self teaching shit, no need to worry him, but you were doing that too. Going online at the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning to research the fuck out of shit just because you can and because it’s something to do.

“Aww you guys have to go already?” John whines, pouting in a way that is too fucking adorable. “Sorry man but yeah. Gotta split.” You’re pretty sure that’s the first words you’ve spoken to him but that has a much bigger significance to you then him. He pouts more and you swear a bird could land on his lip and he crosses his arms like a child after a tantrum. “Hey we’ll see each other later man. Remember we have that last class together.” He perks up a little and nods. “Yeah. Well see you guys!” He waves to you as his smile returns to his face and it’s jarring to see him going from upset to happy that quickly. You give him a small wave and Dave gives a bigger one, still smiling, before you both turn and leave.

You see John again much sooner than you were expecting. Turns out you both have a culinary class together as your third class and his second class. Oh boy.

John had taken the class under his father’s insistence for reasons you nor John likely fully understood though your opinions on the reason differ once you question him on why he was there after he had spotted you and ran over to sit by you while you had been making a new blueprint and sitting alone before class started. He’d never really struck you as a cooking or baking kind of guy but he had proceeded to explain his theory to you which was that the older man was hoping his son would take the path he hadn’t and open a bakery. John had said it was either that or a continued obsession with baking that he wanted to continue to torment John with even as he moved away. Those options seemed unlikely to you and you more suspected John’s dad just didn’t want his son eating nothing but junk food the rest of his life. You know. Like you and Dave did. Kinda the whole reason you were here honestly as you explained to John when he posed your question right back at you. You wanted to make sure Dave was healthy and while you knew some recipes thanks to the internet you wanted to get better and be able to maybe even make a few more creative and personalized things for you and Dave. Besides, even you can get tired of eating nothing but ramen and pizza as you sit around working. He teases you about doing this for Dave but you brush it off. Dave’s your little bro man you’re going to take care of him.

“So what other classes do you have?” He asks. You pull out your phone to check because of course you made your own thing to replace the crappy schedule sheet you had gotten. “First off I’ve got Engineering then I’ve got Programming and then this and fourth I’ve got Robotics and finally I have some math class.” Your final class was more than just some random math class but you called it that because you knew John wouldn’t understand the real name and you didn’t want to confuse him or seem like you were bragging. All your classes had more complicated titles but that was fair game for school classes anyway. 

Even with your attempt to stay humble John still seems impressed by your classes. “Wow! You must be really smart!” You shrug and fight the blush that attempts to come to your cheeks. God you’ve fallen hard and fast haven’t you. This is really really bad. Fuck your desperateness for love and affection and attention. “I don’t know. I just picked stuff that interested me or would help with the other classes.” “That’s still really cool! What kind of stuff do you do that made you want to take those classes?” You know this is just going to make him even more impressed. For some reason everyone is really impressed by your creations you don’t know why. You don’t think they’re that impressive. But you can’t just not stay and class still has a minute until it starts. “I make robots and computer programs.” You try to keep it vague and leave out your creation of Hal the AI in order to be as unimpressive as possible but John doesn’t satisfied with your answer. “Oh come on tell me more! I want to know what kind of stuff you build! I guessed all that from the class names already!” You open your mouth but thankfully the teacher finally starts class and you are saved from having to explain. 

However not forever as you soon find out from the fact that you get a message from an unknown pesterchum username not long into your next class. Thanks to the modifications you made in your shades so Dave could get ahold of you whenever he needed to easily you can see the message right as it comes in on your shades and respond non-verbally and without typing as well. That part was really hard to get working but you achieved it. 

EB: Hey!  
EB: You still need to tell me what you make!  
TT: Who is this?

You already know who it is really and even if you didn’t you wouldn’t need to ask in order to find out but you feel like reminding him so he maybe doesn’t make the same mistake with someone else is the polite thing to do. Of course, it never hurts to make yourself look dumber too. 

EB: Right!   
EB: Sorry it's John.  
TT: Of course.   
TT: Shouldn’t you be focusing on class?  
EB: Shouldn’t you be too?  
TT: Touche.   
EB: :B  
EB: Besides it’s just some public speaking class the teacher is focused on calming down the nervous kids.  
EB: Don’t know why they chose to do this if they’re so nervous but oh well.

That catches your attention. A public speaking class? Why in the world would John need a public speaking class? He doesn’t strike you as the type to be a politician so… an entertainer of some kind maybe? He plays piano so maybe he wants to do that for a living and thinks he needs the class for speeches and stuff? No he doesn’t seem like the kind of person to think of that or want that really. It’s gotta be more direct than that. As attached as you are to him you can tell he’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the world. Not dumb but not incredibly bright. So what could it be? The only option you have left is to ask and maybe it’ll even work double time and make him forget about asking what you’ve made. 

TT: Why are you taking a public speaking class?  
EB: Oh I want to be a comedian!

Duh. Of course, the goofy little prankster wants to be a comedian. That should’ve been a lot more obvious than it was. 

TT: Oh.   
TT: Nice.  
EB: hehe yeah :B

That little face he makes should not be as cute as it is fuck.

EB: I guess it’s only fair if I share my schedule with you since you shared yours with me!  
TT: You don’t have to.

Even as you protest you find that it’s too late and he’s copy pasted his schedule into the chat and therefore onto your eyes. You really should be paying attention but he’s just making sure the class knows the basics today with some stupid worksheet you finished way before anyone else and now he’s going over the things people often get wrong about robotics. So you allow yourself to get distracted by John and his schedule. As you know his classes start later than yours to allow him some piano time, you still can’t quite figure out how that fits into his personality but oh well, and his first class is some writing class and then culinary with you and then the public speaking class and finally some music class. Nothing you couldn’t have guessed or were surprised by really.

TT: You didn’t have to send that.  
EB: It’s only fair!  
TT: That’s not what might I meant.   
TT: I meant your schedule was all things I could’ve guessed you would’ve taken.  
EB: oh.  
TT: It’s fine though.   
EB: Good.  
EB: Anyway you still haven’t answered my question about what you make!  
TT: Oh.  
TT: Right.   
TT: That.  
EB: Come on Dirk tell me!  
EB: I’m super excited and I bet whatever it is is amazing!

God damn, he’s too cute. You are not going to survive are you? Fuck.

TT: I’ve made a few different things.  
EB: Awesome!  
TT: Sure.   
TT: My first one was Squarewave.  
EB: Oh you named them!  
EB: That’s adorable!

You can’t help but blush. Fuck he thinks that the fact that you named your creations is cute. It’s not as cute considering how close to human you act but you don’t make that point.

TT: Sure I guess.   
TT: Anyway he was originally made to be a sort of test robot.   
TT: Not a prototype really but a proof of concept.  
TT: I wanted to make a rapping robot.  
EB: A rapping robot?  
EB: That sounds like something Dave would want.   
TT: We are brothers.  
EB: I guess :B  
EB: Does Squarewave work?  
TT: Well yeah I wouldn’t be talking about him if he didn’t.  
EB: I guess that makes sense.  
TT: Thing is he works even better than intended.  
EB: Huh?  
TT: He acts like a human child.  
TT: Eager and excited as all hell constantly and to be frank it got a bit annoying.  
EB: Got?  
EB: Did you…?  
TT: Take him apart?  
TT: Fuck no.  
TT: That would be cruel.  
TT: No I made him a caretaker of sorts.  
TT: I was going to make him already as a second concept test for something else but he worked for this too so it was just a matter of tweaking a few things in his code and then he was ready for action.  
EB: Who was?  
TT: Sawtooth.

You don’t mention that you made Sawtooth because you needed someone to spar with and you’re glad when he doesn’t ask what Sawtooth was originally for. Even though you had hated fighting Bro just as much as Dave there was a certain release you got from it that you just couldn’t find elsewhere. Besides, it was exercise, entirely optional, and Sawtooth was programed to never actually hurt you even if the blank expression he was stuck with reminded you of a man who very much would hurt you. Dave doesn’t like Sawtooth much even if he is a huge fan of Squarewave’s.

EB: Oh!  
EB: That’s a cool name.  
EB: You know I kinda want to meet these guys now!

You can almost hear his giggle ring in your ears after his text pops up and you read it over.

TT: I mean knowing Dave you’re probably going to be spending more time at our place than your own.

You don’t mention that you want him over too. You don’t mention that you hope he’s over every day. You don’t mention the way your heart tugs as you imagine him falling asleep in your lap as you watch an ironically crappy movie together that he genuinely enjoyed.

EB: Probably yeah :B  
EB: Oh boy we’re actually getting started finally.  
EB: See ya, Dirk!  
TT: See ya, Egbert.

You lean back in your seat and let the chat remain in your vision for a bit longer, just reading over what you can without scrolling. You keep coming back to the simple fact that you’re going to be seeing John a lot. When he comes over and at your shared class. John is a major player in your life now. You’ll see him often. Not just talk to him often like your friends but actually see him. Your stomach does flips and your chest grows warm. Why do you have to fall so fast for people? And so hard too. God you’re a desperate pathetic idiot aren’t you? You just hope you don’t start having breathing problems anytime soon…

You had totally forgot Dave and John had their last class, the music one, together until you went to find Dave to pick him up to take home at the end of the day and find the two boys talking happily to each other. John is facing the direction you approach from but even so it surprises you when he notices you before Dave’s trained hearing can pick up your footsteps. Was he watching for you? No he couldn’t have been that’s stupid. Dave was just engrossed in talking to his best bro. It’s not like he’s ever been able to see him in person before it makes sense he’d be more focused on that even if his anxiety usually keeps him listening for any sounds of any traces of movement even when he’s as relaxed as he can be. And you’ve been away from Bro for a few years now. Maybe he’s starting to untrain himself somehow. You doubt it but it’s a hopeful thought so you cling to it. Cling to the idea that maybe it’s not too late for Dave to get better. That maybe Bro didn’t ruin him beyond repair all because you couldn’t get Dave away from him sooner.

“Oh! Hey Dirk!” John waves to you and Dave turns as well and you catch the slightest glimpse of surprise on his face too from your experience reading not only his expressions but the expressions of a man much better at keeping stoic than him but he quickly erases it from his face. “Hey bro.” You nod to Dave and John as a greeting and join them. “Ready to go Dave?” “Yeah just a sec.” Dave replies and you nod. He turns back to his best friend. “You want to come over today dude? We could watch some movies and hang out and shit.” John grins and bounces on his feet before nodding. “Yeah sure! That sounds awesome!” Dave smirks and nods. “Of course it does dude its my idea after all.” You roll your eyes at Dave’s fake self confidence and John giggles before punching his arm gently. He teases Dave and it turns into a tease off of sorts as you all head back to your home.

As promised the three of you end up watching a movie, Con Air to be exact because John finds out you’ve never seen it and demands you watch it and you can’t deny him even as Dave protests, on the couch. Dave was right, the movie is terrible. Luckily this gives you an excuse to stare at John instead of the TV screen. If they ask you can just say you were trying to figure out how he liked this movie. 

Luckily but less luckily it also gives you an excuse for why you leave the room when you feel your chest tighten with the urge to cough. Dave calls after you that he told you so but you ignore him. You hope that this isn’t what you think it is. That it’s just a consequence of you overworking yourself and the timing is entirely coincidental. You love John, there’s no denying that to yourself, but you can’t be dying from flowers starting to grow in your lungs. You just can’t. Dave still needs you. You can’t just die on him because of some selfish desire to be loved by a straight guy. A very cute straight guy. A cute funny straight guy. A cute funny creative straight guy. A cute funny creative strong straight guy. Fuck. You’re so in love. 

You’re going to die aren’t you?

A week passes and your coughs are kept to single ones that aren’t even that bad really. Dave is giving you looks but you’ve started to avoid him a bit in order to keep from getting questioned on anything and you’re avoiding John too but for completely different reasons as well as the coughs. Maybe, just maybe, if you don’t see him you can stop loving him. You almost think it’s working too until he finally manages to catch the one time you arrive early to culinary class in order to ask the teacher about cheap spices to use and he looks so hurt that you can’t tell him you need to get homework done and can’t talk.

“Dirk?” “Yeah John? What’s up?” “Are you avoiding me? Did I do something wrong?” The way he says that combined with how he looks at you breaks your heart in a way that makes you cough twice and a bit harder than you have so far. His eyes look so sad and heartbroken and they’d be right at home on the face of a toddler. You’d swear they were almost watery with tears. You don’t see why he cares so much when he doesn’t love you but Dave always said he was a caring friend. You wouldn’t have pegged you two friends but you know John is much more open and accepting then you are so that might have to do with it. “I… No. You didn’t do anything wrong John.” He tilts his head and frowns deeper. “Then why aren’t you talking to me anymore? You’re always busy whenever I come over and stuff…” You bite your lip and wish there was an out but class isn’t starting yet so you have no choice but to come up with an answer. “I… I’m sorry John. I’ve been avoiding you but I… I can’t tell you why…” He looks at you for a long time silently before speaking again. “I… Oh…” He sits down quietly and stares at the table and you’ve never felt more guilty in your life. 

You stop talking to John entirely but that doesn’t stop you from seeing him and even seeing him happy with Dave sometimes until he notices you and deflates. Your plan wasn’t working. You’re just as in love as ever. If anything you’re more in love because you know he’s happy when you’re not around despite what you’ve done to him. He’s resilient and amazing and you’ve started coughing up blood. It’s getting increasingly hard to hide this from Dave. You know he knows you’re not fine like you say you are but he doesn’t know what’s wrong yet. You know he will soon but you want to hold that back for as long as possible. 

John looks at you whenever you cough in class and you swear he should be catching on too but you pray he isn’t. Maybe he has and that’s why he’s avoiding you instead of still hounding you about why you’re avoiding him. You hope he hasn’t told Dave. 

You stop going to school after a couple more weeks, unable to take sitting next to him and having him look at you every time you cough which is getting to be more and more often and more and more often bloody. Dave seems thankful when you say you’re sick and that Hal will be letting you know if you need to drag yourself out of bed to help him with anything so he shouldn’t be afraid to ask for things. You guess he’s noticed your sickness even more than you thought. 

You’re laying in bed when it happens. You’re coding on your laptop when it happens. You curl in on yourself and cough for about two minutes straight and you’re expecting a handful of blood when it happens. What you see when you open your hand is bloody but it’s also so much worse too. It’s a petal. A single orange petal. You can’t tell what it is right away but upon further inspection it is possibly a Zinnia petal. You won’t know for sure yet but it could be that.

Regardless you’re terrified.

This single petal confirms all your worst fears. 

You’re in love with John Egbert and that love is going to kill you.

Fuck.

You need to get rid of the petal before Dave gets home. You can’t just throw it away, he’ll see it in the trash can and know what’s happening to you, so instead you do the overdramatic thing and take your welding torch and burn it. It makes a tiny amount of ash which you immediately throw out the window. You climb back into bed and just in case pretend to be asleep when Dave comes to check on you after coming home. You never sleep so he thinks you’re really sick when you pretend to sleep and leaves you alone. As soon as you know he’s gone you flip onto your other side facing the door and pull out your phone. You know you shouldn’t and you weren’t going to at first but your phone is still open to pesterchum from when Dave texted you to check on you earlier and you left him on read, thank god pesterchum doesn't show you read the message but didn’t reply, which leads you to seeing John is online. You’ve hacked pesterchum to make yourself seem offline to others but you know John won’t notice that if you’re the one to message him first. He’ll just think he saw it wrong or wasn’t looking and you came on. You know you shouldn’t message him. Shouldn’t say a thing to him. Should continue with the avoidance game you both are playing. But you just can’t.

TT: hey  
EB: Dirk!   
EB: You aren’t capitalizing or using punctuation.  
EB: You never don’t do that.  
EB: What’s wrong?

He noticed. He actually noticed. And he cares. He’s not even mentioning the fact that you two haven’t talked in forever. He’s just bypassing that and going straight to what’s wrong. God this is too much. You can feel your chest grow tight and it’s not just from the urge to cough.

TT: nothing  
TT: everything  
EB: What?  
EB: That doesn’t make any sense.  
EB: Dave said you were sick today.  
EB: Are you delirious or something?  
TT: well dave didnt lie  
TT: i am sick  
TT: just not from what he thinks  
TT: and i aint delirious  
TT: i just  
TT: i came to say goodbye

You can’t hold back and you cough up about four more petals with tears in your eyes both from the coughing and not from the coughing. You guess talking to John is speeding up the somewhat slow progress of your disease. Great. 

EB: What?  
EB: What are you talking about?   
EB: Dirk?  
EB: Dirk?  
EB: Come on man come back.  
TT: fuck  
TT: im sorry  
EB: For what?  
EB: Dirk what’s wrong?  
EB: What’s going on?  
TT: i love you

You leave the chat there. You don’t need to see him reject you. You already know he doesn’t love you back. Your flower filled lungs are proof of that. He’ll connect the dots on his own or at the very least Dave will tell him when you die. You cough more and when you pull away your hand this time there’s an entire orange Zinnia in it. Fuck. Maybe you’ll die today. You hope it’s fast. You don’t need Dave coming in halfway through to see you die in front of him. He’s scared enough as it is. You’re crying as silently as you can and your chest is so fucking tight and full and you can barely breathe.

Then your bedroom door slams open. 

You’d been more focused on yourself and hadn’t even heard the front door open but apparently Dave gave John a spare key or something because suddenly your door is open and John is rushing over to you. You can see the fear and worry in his eyes as he crouches down on the floor beside your teary form’s head so he can look you in the eye, shades long removed to avoid them flying off as you coughed. You watch as his eyes lock on the flower in your hand and he whimpers. Straight up whimpers as he spots it. Dave comes to the door, clearly confused as to why his best friend just burst down his sick brother’s door, and his eyes too lock on the flower. You watch as your little brother’s eyes go wide behind his shades with shock and you know without having to see them that there's tears in them as his hand comes up to cover his mouth. He’s crying. You’ve made Dave cry and John upset and why won’t these flowers just kill you already? You deserve it. You deserve it so much now more than ever.

Then lips connect with yours and suddenly you can breathe. 

Or, well, you can’t but only because you’re being kissed by the love of your life John Egbert and not because you’re being suffocated by flowers in your lungs.

It takes you a moment of wide-eyed wonder to even realize what’s happening as your chest suddenly clears and feels empty and free rather than tight and crowded. As soon as you can properly tell that John is kissing you however you kiss back, not caring that you should probably catch your breath first. John leans back after a moment and you see the tears in his eyes too and glance over at the shocked Dave and then back at John before pulling him back in. You love him and he loves you. It took you nearly dying for him to realize he was into dudes and you in particular but you don’t care. He loves you. He really really loves you. You hear him make a muffled sound as you kiss him senseless and it makes you smile and giggle in a giddy I’m in love with the biggest cutest dork in existence kind of way and you don’t even care that you sound like a little girl. John looks shocked from your pull in kiss and Dave is smiling, clearly relieved to see you aren’t going to die after all and that you and his best friend have found each other to love. And he’s probably more than a little smug that he was right about John not being as straight as he thought he was. John blinks back into focus after a couple moments and you kiss him, it’s really more a peck but you can’t get over that you’re kissing him, on the lips gently and he giggles. He climbs up onto the bed with you, not even caring as Dave chuckles behind him, winks, and leaves, closing the door behind him like the smug dork he is. John lays right on top of the Zinnia and it’s a weird sight because he both caused and stopped those Zinnias from killing you and something in you had wanted to keep the flower as a memento but more of you is into the symbolism of him crushing it by curling up against your chest and snuggling you lovingly, head tucked under your chin and against your neck. You smile, chuckle, and sigh happily before kissing his head and closing your eyes, ready to settle into the rest of your life with John right here with you.


End file.
